Exercise 39 for Two or More Players, Any Sound Sources: Mixed Ensemble; Sheet

Exercise 39 is remarkable because it refuses to separate technique from musical thinking. Performers at any level must engage in genuine listening and negotiation, making real-time compositional choices that keep everyone accountable. For contemporary music ensembles or adventurous mixed instrumental groups, this piece models what it means to compose collectively within a composer's framework.

Exercise 39 feels like improvisation with a backbone. The score provides anchors (rhythms, dynamics, fully notated passages) that prevent drift while leaving interpretation, balance, and sequence open to the performers in the room. There is both freedom and structure, creating a peculiar kind of ensemble conversation where listening becomes the primary skill.

Mixed ensembles with two or more performers ready to use any available percussion, instruments, or found sound sources will find immediate application here. This is ideal for composers, contemporary music ensembles, experimental music classes, and advanced students learning to navigate graphic and text-based notation alongside traditional staves.

• Read Wolff's performance instructions carefully before your first rehearsal; they are part of the score and contain essential guidance about decision-making processes and how sections can be combined.
• Assign a starting point and decide as an ensemble whether you will work through the five sections sequentially or choose different orderings, then stick with your structure across rehearsals so you can refine response and timing.
• Designate who initiates each section and who responds; this clarifies responsibility and prevents hesitation, even though the musical material itself remains flexible.
• Use the dynamics-only passage as an opportunity to explore your chosen sound sources thoroughly; the variety of attack and sustain available shapes how performers will hear and balance each other.

This works best on a concert devoted to experimental or process-based music, where audiences understand that the piece's form emerges from performers' decisions. It can also serve as a teaching piece in a contemporary music seminar or as a studio project where students explore indeterminate notation and ensemble collaboration without the pressure of a public premiere.

• Reading multiple notation systems simultaneously (staff notation, rhythmic notation, graphic symbols, and verbal instructions)
• Making collaborative interpretive decisions in real time
• Listening actively and responding to other performers' choices
• Understanding indeterminate composition and performer agency
• Exploring extended techniques and unconventional sound production on any available instruments